New York Mets End Exhibition Season | Not A Good Day

By: Gary W. Marchese Jr.

Sarasota, Fl. (Apr 3) – The New York Mets concluded their exhibitions schedule with an 11-0 thrashing at the hands of the Baltimore Orioles. I don’t know if the Mets were just ready to get out of Florida and get back to New York or if it was just a bad day. 

The starting pitcher on the mound was Jon Niese and he was awful giving up 5 runs and 8 hits in 5 innings.  He walked 2 batters and struck out 5.  He will be the 5th starter on this team so maybe he was just getting his work in and not too worried about the results. 

I don’t really look at spring training results myself but the Mets pitching staff has to be cause for concern.  They didn’t come into camp inspiring much confidence and they aren’t leaving camp any better in fact it may be worse.  Johan Santana is a given on this team but after that it is anyone’s guess how Maine, Perez and Pelfrey will perform. 

I really am not so concerned with Niese as the 5th starter isn’t so important and he just has to pitch decently.  Sean Green who found out after the game that he made the team pitched miserably as he has all spring long.  He gave up 2 hits and 4 runs in 2/3 of an inning.  He also walked a batter. 

Oliver Perez pitched an inning and gave up a hit and run, he finishes the spring with a sparkling 8.68 era.  I just don’t know how any fan of this team can be confident in this pitching.

The bright side of the team is their offense.  I do think the offense will be fine even without Beltran for at least the first month.  I think Angel Pagan will be able to fill in nicely and Gary Matthews Jr. will get some playing time also.  I think Reyes will come back after the first 5 games and be like his old self although he may not be running as much early on.  I think Jason Bay and Mike Jacobs will provide some pop to the lineup and they will score runs. 

The problem for them is that they will have to probably average at least 6+ runs a game.  Jason Bay was 1-2 today and finished the spring with a 340 average.  Gary Matthews Jr. was 2-4 and had a pretty good spring finishing with a 286 average.  Ruben Tejada had a hit and he finished off an impressive spring.  Frank Catalanotto who will be coming home to play ball after all of these years also had a hit.  He will be a bench player and should be a valuable member of the team with his experience. 

The New York Mets will now head home to New York where they will get ready to play the Florida Marlins.  Opening Day is Monday afternoon at 1:00PM. 

Darryl Strawberry the former Met will throw out the ceremonial first pitch and I am sure Citi Field will look great with all the pomp and circumstance, and then it is time to erase the memories of a terrible year and get the fans behind them quickly. 

Johan Santana will be on the mound so that is one good thing the Mets will have going for them but he can’t pitch every day.

Posted by gmarchesej on April 3, 2010. Filed under Mets,News and Sports with Gary W. Marchese Jr.,Sports,US Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.